


Hand-me-down

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Background Relationships, Child Abuse, Cookies, Drama, Emotional Fallout, F/F, Feelings, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Neglect, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Recovery, Teasing, casual polyamory, platonic intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-06 22:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13421421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: Nino is quiet, and her dress is too small, and her hair is short and choppy like she tried to cut it herself with a kitchen knife. Lyn sets out to help her, but it ends up working the other way around, too.





	Hand-me-down

**Author's Note:**

> what the fuck is an elibe

Nino is quiet, and her dress is too small, and her hair is short and choppy like she tried to cut it herself with a kitchen knife. She lingers on the edges of camp for the first few days she's traveling with them, keeping to herself and playing with the embers she conjures as easily as breathing. Lyn never sees her eating, and always sees her watching people train, but when she looks, she's gone in a flash of green and white and purple.  
  
"I'm a little worried," Eliwood says to her one evening, as an idle musing while Hector gets more milk for their cocoa. "And I know I worry about lots of things, but I'm worried about Nino."  
  
It takes a moment for Lyn to think of who he means. When she can't, she frowns. "Who?"  
  
Eliwood gestures. "About this tall, maybe twelve, purple cape?"  
  
"The little mage girl Eliwood rescued," Hector clarifies, pouring sugar into his cocoa.   
  
Lyn nods. "Ah, her. What worries you, then?" Getting back to the heart of the problem. She sips her cocoa, thick and hot and sweet as it rolls down her tongue and throat. Lyn may miss many things about her plains, but she'll say this about Pherae— they make a mean hot beverage.  
  
Eliwood frowns, stirring his cocoa thoughtfully. Hector sits down in his chair and slides the sugar cubes back over to Lyn, who takes one and bites into it with a satisfying crunch. Eliwood thinks for quite some time, pondering and scratching at his pockmarked chin. Lyn lightly slaps his hand— she's told him not to do that— and he picks at the edges of the wooden mug instead.  
  
"I think what's bothering me," he finally says, "Is that she's just a kid and nobody's taking care of her."  
  
Lyn quirks an eyebrow. "You're worried for her because she's young? Practically half the army is made of kids. I can count on one hand the number of folks who've reached twenty-five."  
  
"I know, I know, and that's not lost on me," Eliwood admits. "But I'm still worried. Don't you agree, Hector?"  
  
Hector hums into his cocoa. "She's hard to track down, makes it more complicated," he admits, like he's a grown man musing on serious topics and not a seventeen-year-old boy musing on serious topics. "Maybe we put out a box of cookies for bait and snag her there. It works in Ostia."  
  
Lyn rolls her eyes. "Do you want rats, Hector? Because that's how we get rats in camp."  
  
Hector squints at her, then returns to his cocoa. "Don't see any brighter ideas from you geniuses," he mutters.   
  
"You're just not thinking hard enough," Lyn replied. "I'll get something done. Don't either of you worry."  
  


* * *

  
  
Nino didn't make it easy for Lyn to track her down, because for how often Lyn's seen her around camp, it's not easy to corner someone who seems to be excellent at melting into the shadows. Maybe it's that punk Lyn's seen her with a time or two, rubbing off on her.   
  
But what people tend to forget about Lyn is that she's not just a swordswoman raised on the Sacaean plains, she's a hunter— she is fast and lethal and refuses to give in once she's sighted her prey, and just because her prey is a fourteen-year-old mage and she doesn't intend to make dinner out of her doesn't mean the principles aren't the same. So she corners Nino in the supply wagon foraging for snacks, and considers this a victory.  
  
"Hector keeps tins of gingerbread under the flour sacks," Lyn says, while Nino's broken into a set of pickled herrings wrapped in cheesecloth and is scarfing them down like she's afraid someone will take them away. "I'm sure that'd be a better snack than those fish."  
  
Nino freezes, half a herring hanging out of her mouth. She stares at Lyn, all big blue eyes like a kid with her hand caught in the cookie jar, like Lyn is a creature that sees movement and not shapes and if Nino moves very, very slowly, she can escape.   
  
Lyn doesn't call attention to this. She just vaults up into the wagon in one swift momement, pushes the flour sacks aside, and produces a travel-battered tin of gingerbread. She pops the top off and takes one of the pieces, then offers the tin to Nino.  
  
Nino finishes the herring in her mouth and wipes it on the sleeve of her dress. It's pushed halfway back to her elbow, both cuff buttons undone, and the buttonholes on the other are torn with wear anyway. She wipes her slightly-grimy hands on her big purple cloak, then looks from Lyn to the cookies and back suspiciously.  
  
Lyn sits on the back of the wagon with her legs dangling off the ground and gestures for Nino to sit with her. Nino does, drawing her cloak around her shoulders. Lyn offers her the tin again, and this time Nino takes it. She takes a piece of gingerbread, takes a bite, and then starts shoving the cookies into her mouth.  
  
"You'll get a stomach ache if you eat that fast," Lyn chides. Nino coughs, and Lyn hands her a skin of water, which Nino takes gratefully. Water and cookie crumbs drip down her chin, and she wipes it all off on her stained sleeve. Her table manners are terrible. Lyn's grandfather would've had a heart attack.  
  
"You're Nino, right?" Lyn asks next. "I'm Lyn. I'm a friend of Eliwood's."  
  
Nino nods, mouth still full of gingerbread. "He tol' me," she says, spraying cookie crumbs everywhere. "Lathy Lynthith, yeah?"   
  
"Just Lyn's fine," Lyn says. Nino doesn't look like she believes her, but she doesn't protest. She waits while Nino scarfs down the entire box of cookies and drains the waterskin, then cleans off her face with her sleeve. Lyn can't help but notice the way her hemline is several inches above her knees, where it's supposed to be, and she keeps tugging at her collar and shoulders like it's still too tight. Her hair's messy, and Lyn has to push down the urge to run her hand over it to try and smooth it down.  
  
"I've seen you training, Lady Lyndi— Lyn," Nino says, catching herself at the last second. "You're fast. You'd make a good assassin."  
  
Lyn isn't sure whether that's a compliment or not. "Well, I'm glad you enjoy the show," she replies.  
  
"It's a shame, though, because your hair gets all tangled," Nino continues, which strikes Lyn as an odd thing to be concerned about. "You should let me brush it sometimes. I'm good at that."  
  
"I," Lyn falters, taken aback. "I suppose? If that's what you want. I've never thought much about it, personally."  
  
Nino kicked her feet back and fourth. "I just think it might do you good, is all," she said, tilting her head to the side. Somehow Lyn figured that wasn't the full story, but she didn't push. And Lyn could work with this— somehow.  
  
"Alright, Nino," Lyn decided. "You've got yourself a deal."  
  
Nino hadn't been exaggerating— she's very good at brushing hair. She's methodical and focused, and she has a way of doing it that doesn't tug at any of Lyn's multitude of tangles. She's practiced this somewhere, but Lyn can't imagine where.   
  
"You can talk, if you want," Nino tells her, after ten minutes of silence. "I brush, you talk. Just try not to gesture or move your head too much, it'll throw me off."  
  
"I'm not good at idle chatter," Lyn admits. "What would I talk about? You can talk instead."  
  
Nino frowns. "Are you sure?"  
  
"Very. So what do you think of the army so far?"  
  
"Well… Lord Eliwood seems very nice, I suppose…"  
  


* * *

  
  
Hector pounds on the table with his fist. "You _ate_ my _gingerbread?"_ he demands, his voice cracking and pitching up eight octaves with every other syllable.   
  
"To be fair, you did suggest baiting Nino with cookies," Eliwood points out.   
  
Hector sputters, scandalized. "She _ate_ my _gingerbread!"_  
  
"My point is, it worked," Lyn points out, leaning forward and grinning into her cocoa. "See? I told you something would get done. This is why the two of you should stick to sharing spit in the armory wagon and leave the heavy lifting to me."  
  
"But that's not all there is to it, is there?"  
  
At Eliwood's question, Lyn frowns. "I don't suppose it is," she admits. "But I'll keep the two of you posted."  
  


* * *

  
  
"…And everyone's _so_ pretty. Like your friend Florina, and both of her sisters, and Priscilla, and Rebecca, and Serra, and Ninian, and— everyone!"  
  
Lyn quirks an eyebrow. "You've got quite a good taste in women."  
  
"I probably learned something from being around mother all that time," Nino shrugs. They're cross-legged on the floor of Lyn's tent sharing another tin of Hector's gingerbread. "She was always always _al_ -ways going on about her beauty. Her beauty rest, and her regimen, and all of that. She taught me how to brush her hair so she could do her makeup at the same time, so it'd take less time and she could sleep later. So I like to think I know something pretty when I see it."  
  
Lyn hums. "That's one way to think of it."  
  
Nino sighs. "I wish _I_ was pretty like that," she admits, playing with the hem of her nightwear— an old woolen shirt with threadbare elbows and missing buttons, that someone had found but nobody had claimed. "Like mother was— she was very pretty, after all— or… like Ninian. But that's probably impossible."  
  
Lyn nods empathetically. They share a moment to commiserate.  
  
Nino broke the silence by shifting a little closer. "So, about Florina— she's pretty too, right?"  
  
"Yes, definitely," Lyn agrees. She looks at Nino, thumb on her chin. "I bet if you asked, she'd let you borrow some of her day dresses, at least until we can get new ones for you made— you know yours is too small." And the sleeves are stained, and the buttons are broken, and the hemming thread's give has all gone out, and the skirt ends three inches above her knees.   
  
Nino blanches. "I couldn't," she says automatically. "I don't want to bother her."  
  
"Gods, now you even sound like her." Lyn can't help but roll her eyes. "Nino, what's the worst that could happen by you asking?"  
  
"She'd say no," Nino says automatically. "Then she'd scoff at me for even daring to bother her with such a trivial matter, and that I should go bother someone else instead of being useless here, and— not that I think _Florina_ of all people would say any of that, of course, but you did ask."  
  
And Lyn supposes she did. Serves her right.  
  
Nino hums thoughtfully. "Maybe if I'm really, really quick and I bring Jaffar with me, I can sneak back home and find something with mother's things. That's where I found my cape, you know. She wouldn't mind."  
  
"Sounds like a lot of trouble," Lyn frowns.  
  
"Well, I think I should go talk to my mother anyway," Nino shrugs. "Sometime, anyway. I… I can't hide from what I've done. Not from the Black Fang. And father always told me that if I break a rule, I should own up to it instead of lie and cover it up."  
  
It's good advice, but Lyn has a bad feeling about it. "What do you mean what you've done?"  
  
"With Prince Zephiel," Nino elaborates. "Jaffar and I were supposed to kill him, but we didn't, and a Black Fang member never leaves a job half-done. It's not Jaffar's fault. It was my first mission that mother gave me, and she said… well, that's not important. I just feel like I _have_ to go back. She's my mother, after all."  
  
"I can't stop you if you do decide to get some closure," Lyn admits. "But just… be careful, yeah? And for the purpose of getting your things, I really think asking Florina is a better idea. She won't mind at all. I think she'll be thrilled."  
  
Nino hesitates.  
  
"I'll ask for you," Lyn acquiesces. And Nino's shoulders relax a mote in relief, so Lyn considers that a win.  
  


* * *

  
  
" _Ohh_ ," Ninian coos, fingers twined together around her mug of cocoa, because Eliwood's started inviting guests, because he's the type of man who just holds so much love in his heart that he cannot possibly devote it to one person. He's told Lyn as much— Lyn had asked what kind, and he said he didn't know, he was never quite sure, but did it matter? And Lyn supposes it doesn't. "I see why you're all friends now. You have the same type of kindness."  
  
"Well, I wasn't going to just _leave_ it there," Lyn's quick to say, fidgeting with the sugar cube in her hands. "And anyway, I feel like we're really connecting. So I'll ask Florina about the dress when she and her sisters get back from scouting."  
  
"I'm glad you're looking out for her," Eliwood says, and Ninian removes one of her hands from her mug to lace her fingers with Eliwood's. He clasps her hand in both of his, thumb rubbing over the fine mesh of pale green scales covering her fingertips. "It's truly a weight off my shoulders."  
  
"You have enough to worry about," Lyn says. "I'll handle this, Eliwood."  
  
"Bring her for cocoa sometime," Hector suggests wryly. "Since apparently we're taking guests now."  
  
"Oh, Hector, be nice," Eliwood chides.  
  
Lyn smiles smugly. "He's just jealous Ninian's taking all your attention, Eliwood."  
  
"I am _not_ jealous! I just thought cocoa nights were special, you know?"  
  
"Oh, that won't do for you to be jealous, Lord Hector!"  
  
"I'm not—"  
  
"Here, Hector, if it makes you feel better, you can hold my other hand."  
  
"Oh, but Eliwood, you won't be able to drink your cocoa! Cocoa nights are special, after all."  
  
"A lack of cocoa is a small price to pay for Hector's happiness— unless you want to hold Lyn's hand instead, Hector."  
  
"I'm alright with that. Feel honored at the privelege."  
  
"I know _I_ would be, Lady Lyndis— if I may be so forward."  
  
"Oh, tempting. Better hurry up and pick, Hector. Stiff competition."  
  
"I _hate_ all of you."  
  


* * *

  
  
"Here, Nino," Lyn says one day. "Give me your hands."  
  
Puzzled, Nino does. Lyn takes them both, sandwiches them between her own so Nino's fingers are curled around Lyn's thumbs.   
  
"What's that?" Nino asks.  
  
"It's something we did in Sacae," Lyn explains. She bows her head, and presses Nino's fingers to her forehead. After a few seconds, she lifts her head again and releases Nino's hands. "It's supposed to be a gesture of praying for strength from those you're close to, but it doesn't have to always have meaning. Sometimes it just feels right."  
  
Nino's quiet, looking at her hands, then Lyn's, and for a moment Lyn thinks she should ask if Nino understands. But Nino nods, slowly and then faster, looking back at Lyn.  
  
"Can I try?" she asks.   
  
Lyn holds out her hands. "Of course you can."  
  
Nino imitates slowly, pressing Lyn's knuckles to her brow. Then she looks up again. "That's it?"  
  
"Not always," Lyn admits. "Lovers will kiss their partner's knuckles first, and sometimes parents or siblings will kiss their child or younger sibling's head. But that was just my tribe. I've never lived with any others, so I wouldn't know how different they are."  
  
"It's nice," Nino says. She still hasn't let go of Lyn's hands, but Lyn doesn't push it. "My mother didn't like touching."  
  
"I suppose not everyone has to," Lyn admits, even if that sets off alarm bells in her head. "But now you know."  
  


* * *

  
  
"So _that's_ what that was!" Eliwood says in realization, snapping his fingers. Florina, tucked close to Lyn's side with a mug of cocoa in her small, battle-calloused hands, giggles, and Lyn grins and nods.  
  
"To be fair, you didn't ask," she says.  
  
"But it's such a beautiful gesture," Ninian says empathetically. "I've seen many types of gestures of affection, you know, so I think I'd know a thing or two about that. And it's not romantic?"  
  
"Not unless you kiss the hands before the breath," Lyn says.  
  
Ninian hums. "I see, I see," she says. "I don't suppose a demonstration would be out of the question?"  
  
Lyn chuckles. "No, I wouldn't want to make Florina uncomfortable," she says.  
  
Florina nearly chokes on her cocoa. "I wouldn't," she sputters. She coughs, tears springing to her eyes when the cocoa goes down her windpipe by accident. It takes a minute and another few sips of cocoa for her to recover. "I mean, Lyn, if… if you don't mind, then I… only if you want to, that is to say…"  
  
Oh. _Oh_.  
  
Heat rises past Lyn's high collar. She clears her throat. "But do _you_ want to?" she asks. "Because if you don't want to, then I won't."  
  
"I-I said I didn't mind," Florina says quickly. "So, if _you_ want to…"  
  
Hector stands up, his chair scooting back with him. "I give up," he decides. "If we wait on those two for anything interesting to happen, we'll be here 'til the cocoa gets cold. I'm going to bed."  
  
Eliwood sighs. "So much for that."  
  
"They're really quite something," Ninian comments, gazing at Lyn with amusement. "I still can't believe she didn't notice I was flirting with her."  
  
"You flirt with everyone, Ninian," Eliwood teases.  
  
Ninian touches her chin in pretend thought. "Really? I hadn't the _faintest_ idea."  
  
Hector rolls his eyes. "Good night."  
  


* * *

  
  
Florina's happy to oblige— Lyn had figured she would be— and had eagerly dug through her trunk to find some extra clothing she never wore. Not only did she find a dress that would work, she also found a pair of stockings, a nightgown, a quilted winter coat, and a thick, baggy sweater, and as a marked difference from when Lyn first knew her, she eagerly invites herself over to Lyn's tent to see how they fit Nino.  
  
Nino blinks in confusion when Florina pushes the bundle of clothing into her arms. "I couldn't possibly," she tries to say. "It's too much."  
  
"The seasons are changing," Florina replies. "You'll need a sweater, and a coat, and dresses that fit. I'd have brought you new boots, too, because yours are falling apart, but we can't carry extras of those and my feet are smaller than yours, anyway."  
  
Nino's mouth fumbles for the words. "I can't," she tries to say again, shaking her head and handing the bundle to Florina.  
  
Florina, ever gentle, pushes the bundle back into Nino's arms. "I insist," she replies.  
  
They end up sharing more of Hector's gingerbread— he's changed hiding places, but sniffing out the gingerbread is a cinch for Lyn, mostly because she knows him— while sitting on the warm Sacae-woven rug spread out on the floor of Lyn's tent, where Nino's been spending more and more of her time. Her own is so _boring_ , she tells Lyn, because she doesn't have any of her own things to decorate it with. But Lyn's lived in tents her whole life, and to her, a tent is a home; it soothes Lyn's wanderer's spirit to know that she's managed to spread that feeling to others.  
  
Florina's old things fit Nino perfectly— though they're a little baggy, because Nino's a gangly teenager and Florina isn't. But they're sturdy and warm, Illian-made, sure to keep Nino warm in the colder months even with her rigorous chanting and casting, and they have room for her to grow.   
  
"We'll have to make a trip into town to see if we can get you new boots," Lyn thinks aloud. Nino's are shabby and Lyn's seen the blisters they rub onto her heels. "With all the marching we do, it's practically necessity."  
  
Nino's eyes are still red-rimmed— she'd started crying when Florina insisted she keep and try on the hand-me-downs, and it'd taken what felt like ages to soothe her again— but she nods. "I'd like that," she whispers hoarsely, taking a piece of gingerbread.  
  
Eventually, though, Nino goes to bed in her own tent, curled up in Florina's old nightgown and sweater. That kid she's always with, the scruffy one Eliwood's age, eyes Lyn with suspicion as he sits outside Nino's tent like a sentinel, but shuts his eyes in silent, passive acceptance of Lyn's presence. Nino's asleep as soon as her head hits her bedroll (it's been a busy day, after all), but Lyn sets a folded quilt and a stoppered waterskin on the floor just inside the tent, just in case she needs them.  
  


* * *

  
  
"I need to find better hiding places for my cookies," Hector grumbles, adding curls of chocolate from a little jar to the froth on top of his cocoa. "Or maybe just buy more, if you're feeding Nino with them."  
  
"She's gotten to eating real mealtimes, so I probably won't set out the cookies as often, but," Lyn shrugs. "She likes them."  
  
"Oh, well if she _likes_ them," Hector drawls. "Get that child real food so she doesn't stuff herself with my cookies, Lyn."  
  
Lyn chuckles, knowing full well Hector's ire is not genuine in the least. "Give her the recipe and I'm sure she'll make you some," she replies. "She's told me Rebecca is teaching her to cook."  
  
"That's so sweet," Ninian comments, smiling into her cocoa. "So that's what was going on when I smelled carrot soup the other day."  
  
"This is real development, then," Eliwood sums up. "I'm glad. You seem to have taken to mentorship nicely, Lyn."  
  
Lyn chuckles abashedly. "I'm just doing what anyone would do," she says.   
  
Ninian takes a sip of her coffee. "Of course," she says. She leaves it at that.  
  


* * *

  
Weeks pass. Nino keeps brushing Lyn's hair, experimenting with little braids down the side and beads woven in with her nimble little fingers. She talks when she braids, about how cooking with Rebecca is going and how Canas is teaching her to read, and Lyn listens because Lyn is good at listening.   
  
"Next time, I'm going to ask about making Lord Hector's gingerbread cookies," Nino tells her, cross-legged on a trunk behind Lyn, carding the brush through her hair, while Lyn sits on the rug and polishes her sword. "Since we keep eating his, and such."  
  
"Hector's a big baby," Lyn snorts. "He can get his own cookies."  
  
"I mean, I suppose," Nino admits. "But… if _I_ made us cookies, would you eat them?"  
  
It's not even a question. "Of _course_ I would, Nino," she promises. "I won't turn down free food."  
  
"Even if my cookies end up bad?"  
  
Nino had stopped the hairbrush. Lyn turns her head and nods, grinning at Nino to show she means it. "I won't know if they're bad if I don't try them at all, will I? So I suppose I have to."  
  
Nino's face lights up. "I'll do my best to make them not bad, then!" she promises, going back to brushing Lyn's hair.  
  
Lyn hums, and leans back against the Sacae-made quilt over Nino's lap. Florina and her sisters have started fussing over her, with the weather being as chilly as it is in the colder season. Even if winter's not nearly as harsh down south as it is in Ilia, Nino's so skinny, they worry. Especially Fiora— but Lyn's pretty sure that's half her personality, being the eldest. (Not that Lyn would know anything at all about having or being an eldest sibling.)  
  
"You know," Nino says. "You're really nice to me, Lyn."  
  
"Of course I am," Lyn replies. "We're friends, aren't we?"  
  
"Well, yes, I think so," Nino begins hesitantly. "But I've… never had friends before. Or family. So I don't know if I'm doing this right."  
  
Her words make something in Lyn twinge at the familiarity. But Lyn remembers what it's like to have a family, a tribe— running across the plains with the other children of the tribe, hearing stories from the tribe elders, learning to shoot a bow and swing a sword and lead a people with her father, curling up with her mother when she tired herself out. She'd been eleven when disaster struck, when what little of her tribe that remained refused to follow her, when she was left alone with what she could carry on her back and in her saddlebags. Eleven was old enough to lead, barely, but not for a girl. Never for a girl. And it'd been lonely, and Lyn can't deny that it's had its effect.  
  
But she has memories. Nino has nothing.  
  
"It's so strange," Nino says, brushing Lyn's hair with a steady rhythm like she's trying to keep herself steady. "I watch people, you know. When I was little and mother had me run errands for her, sometimes I'd linger on the way home. I used to stand at the corner of the marketplace and watch. I'd see little boys chasing each other and friends chatting and people trading goods and husbands and wives kissing and mothers holding hands with their children and fathers with their kids on their shoulders.  
  
"Sometimes at home, too," Nino keeps going. "My brothers, Lloyd and Linus, they were Black Fang assassins, sure, but they were brothers. They'd punch each other and do dumb boy things when they didn't have missions, and they used to sneak me sweets, too. And when mother married father, she'd always give him kisses and he'd hold her around the waist. He wasn't really my father, but he was good. He never hurt me or told me I was being absurd or demanding or wasting his time or being a burden."  
  
She swallows. "Mother told me that a lot, when I asked her to hold my hand or— or such," she says, her voice dropping to a shaky whisper. Lyn's hands, without her realizing it, clench into fists. But Nino's still talking. "She told me, the night I had to try to kill Zephiel, that if I succeeded, she'd hold my hand as often as I wanted to. She'd hold my hand, a-and brush my hair, and maybe even stroke my face, if I do well!" She swallowed, clutching the hairbrush and rubbing at her eyes with her fist.   
  
"I keep seeing it happen," she confesses, her little voice trembling. "Here, too. You and your friends all— you're all _normal_. You've all been so kind to me these past few weeks, so much kinder than I know what to do with, and it's so _easy_ for you! And I can watch you all doing what you do so easily, holding hands and hugging and— and eating meals together, and I see it and I try to do it but it just feels so _fake_ and _wrong_ and— and I just want to feel _normal_ , for once in my life! Is that wrong?"  
  
Her voice breaks, and her hands shake around the hairbrush. She looks at Lyn pleadingly, tears falling from her eyes.  
  
"Is it wrong?" she asks again, her voice thick.  
  
Gently, Lyn pulls her head away, scoots herself on top of the trunk next to Nino. She has the sleeves of her hand-me-down sweater pushed up above her elbows. She takes the hairbrush from Nino's shaking hands and pries them apart, and tucks them between her own. She bows her head and touches Nino's knuckles to her brow.  
  
"It's not wrong," she murmurs. "You're not wrong, Nino. You could never be wrong."

Nino's hands shake when she repeats the gesture, Lyn's fingertips pressed close to her forehead like she's trying to make up for fourteen years of neglect and loneliness with this one touch. (Lyn understands too well— Eliwood's too much of a hugger for her to say she feels that anymore, but she did once.)  
  
Lyn caves. She pulls Nino into her arms.  
  


* * *

  
  
Lyn doesn't tell this story during cocoa night. Some things should stay personal.  
  


* * *

  
  
In the next days, Nino seems off. More thoughtful, at least to Lyn, but she's not quite sure why. The weather starts getting cold enough that Florina and her sisters start saying it's _a bit nippy, yeah?_ Which, of course, means Lyn and most of the rest of the army are wearing coats and scarves. (Lyn has to corner Nino and her friend— Jaffar, that's his name— and make them put on coats, but she does it, and it sticks. _Good_ , Lyn decides. They're sensible.)  
  
It's chilly. The day's ended, the night breeze cold against Lyn's skin and biting at her already-pink nose. As cold as they days have gotten, nights are even colder. Lyn shivers, rubs her gloved hands together, pulls her gloves off and blows heat into them with her gloves tucked in the crook of her elbow.  
  
"Lyn," Florina calls. "Lyn!"  
  
She sounds panicked. Lyn turns, puts her gloves back on. Florina's in a mix of her armor and her nightwear, wearing her breastplate over her sweater and her greaves above her slippers, and her spear slung over her back.  
  
"What's—" Lyn starts. Florina throws herself into Lyn's arms, trembling enough Lyn automatically holds her. On another day, Lyn would've blushed at the contact, but it's obvious something's wrong.  
  
Florina takes a huge breath of air, steadied in Lyn's arms. "It's Nino," she gasps. "I went into her tent to check if she and Jaffar had enough blankets because I forgot to at sundown, but when I got there they were both gone!"  
  
"Gone?" Lyn's heart jumps into her throat, then plummets into her stomach so fast it makes her nauseous. "Gods— she went to see her mother."  
  
Florina furrows her brow. "What?"  
  
But Lyn's already sprinting through the camp, mind racing, trying to figure out where she might've gone. Her house? No, Nino was raised with assassins, she wouldn't return to a house. Some kind of hideout, then.  
  
She nearly crashes right into Eliwood, but Hector catches her. The grim set in his jaw tells her all she needs to know.  
  
"Nino," she says.   
  
"We know," Eliwood nods. "Hector and I overheard Nino and Jaffar talking a few minutes ago. Nino's gone—"  
  
"To see her mother," Lyn finishes. "Did she say where?"  
  
"Something about a water temple," Hector says. "I swear, when I get my hands on those little _shits_ —"  
  
"We have to catch up," Eliwood cuts him off. "They can't have gone far."  
  
Lyn breathes. "Florina and I will go on ahead," she says. "The rest of you can follow in case we need backup. _Don't_ try to argue with me on this one, Eliwood, don't you _dare_ ," she says before Eliwood and Hector can protest. "I'm going. That's that."  
  
And luckily for them, they don't try to argue.  
  


* * *

  
  
It's luck and speed that keeps them from getting stopped on the way to the Water Temple. Lyn's heart pounds, mind processing in single words, single images— _Temple. Stairs. Darkness. Empty. Voices. Shouting. Body. Footsteps. Burning. Speaking. Nino._  
  
Florina catches her arm. Lyn stops. She hadn't realized how fast she was going, how rapid her heart was beating, how loud the rush of blood in her ears had gotten.   
  
"Hey," Florina says. Her voice isn't any louder than it's usual soft tone, but it cuts through the rushing like a knife through butter. Lyn stops herself, uses the sound as an anchor. She breathes, forces air into her lungs. The rushing quiets. Florina's hands are on her arm, and it keeps her steady.  
  
Lyn's chest shakes. "I heard her voice," she says. "Nino. Where— I can't—"  
  
"You're going in circles," Florina says. "This place is so echoey, it's nigh-impossible to track someone by sound."  
  
Florina's right. Lyn swallows hard and nods.  
  
"Nino's in danger," she says.  
  
"I know," Florina tells her.  
  
"I can't tell where," Lyn says.  
  
"Focus," Florina tells her. "Focus, Lyn. You're a hunter. You can do this."  
  
Lyn nods. She reaches up, takes Florina's hands off her arms and tucks them between her own. She clutches them tightly, bows her head, presses Florina's knuckles to the space between her brows.   
  
Voices echo through the temple. Lyn concentrates. She hears a cackle that sends a shiver down her spine, a voice that sets her teeth on edge. She can't make out the words, but she'd know that pitch anywhere.  
  
Lyn grits her teeth. "Sonia's here," she says. "Further down. Left fork."  
  
Florina nods. "I'm right with you," she promises.  
  
Her voice sounds so sweet amidst the rushing. Lyn smiles, and presses her lips to Florina's knuckles. Florina sucks in a quiet gasp.  
  
Lyn pulls away. "Let's go," she says. "Nino's down there."  
  


* * *

  
  
The voices are muffled behind a door carefully treated to make it look sealed. At another point in time, Lyn might've admired the artistry that went into it, but that's the furthest thing from her mind when she pounds it with her fist. The false seals creak.  
  
"Of course they'd hide behind doors," Lyn growls. "Cowards, the lot of them."  
  
"On three," Florina suggests. "We'll ram it. One… two…"  
  
On three, Lyn charges. The seals give way with a cracking like trees breaking under the pressure of their frozen sap. Lyn turns what would've been a fall into a roll and comes up kneeling, sword drawn, pointed at the one behind it all— _Sonia_.  
  
"You," she grinds out, staring her down like an apex predator facing its rival. "Where's Nino?"  
  
"She's here, Lyn," Florina calls. Lyn's head whips around. Nino's curled in Florina's arms, silent and trembling with her tome spine-up halfway across the room. The stench of burnt skin fills Lyn's nose, and a minute later, the source pulls himself from a collapsed stack of supply crates— Jaffar, clutching an angry red burn on his cheek. Florina whispers quiet reassurances to Nino that Lyn can't hear over the rushing of blood in her ears.  
  
"Lyn," Nino chokes out, voice thick with tears. There's a painful-looking red welt on her cheek that's sure to swell into a bruise. "You— you came for me?"  
  
Lyn's heart swells painfully. "Of course I did," she says. "We're friends, aren't we?"  
  
Sonia sneers, and lets out a sour laugh that reminds Lyn of the reason she rushed here. "Such sweet friends you've made, Nino," she says, like the words are cloying and sweet in her mouth. "I'd hate to cut the reunion short, but…" Then she pauses, and laughs. "Actually, no, I wouldn't."  
  
"You're a monster!" Lyn shouts. "I'll kill you!"  
  
"Mm." Sonia examines her cuticles with bored disinterest. "You may try. Lord Nergal shan't be happy if you succeed, but it's _vanishingly_ unlikely you will."  
  
"Shut your mouth," Lyn growls. She charges.  
  
For one person, Sonia is formidable. Darkness pours from circles drawn in light in the air, bursting into showers of green flames that peter out into cinders, and a thick smoke that makes Lyn's every breath hurt rises when the flames die. Her eyes water. Her hands ache. Her stance wavers until she may as well be hacking at the illusion of Sonia with a dull hatchet.  
  
"Suffer," Sonia laughs gleefully, appearing out of the smoke like a phantom from a nightmare. "Die here, and _suffer_ in the knowledge of your failure!"  
  
Lyn hacks, dropping to one knee and trying desperately to cough the smoke from her lungs. The edges of her vision go black, and it flashes red when Sonia's tome strikes the side of her skull. Lyn crumples. Pain in its purest form courses through her veins with every dogged beat of her heart. Someone screams— it might be Lyn. Sonia's shoe comes down on Lyn's wrist and forces her hand to flatten, and when Lyn curls around the screaming in her wrist, Sonia kicks the sword away. It skitters across the stone and lands too far away for Lyn to even hope of reaching.  
  
But the air is clearer on the ground.  
  
"I grow tired of these games you play," Sonia says haughtily, stepping around Lyn's form. Through the haze in front of her eyes, Lyn catches a glimpse of Jaffar ready to shield Nino from any incoming blows, of Nino clutching her battered tome despite the tears on her cheeks, of Florina staring Sonia down with her lance ready to strike. "All this so-called Pheraean army is is a band of children with sticks and slingshots. Children, every last one."  
  
She punctuates it with a sneer. "And I absolutely. _Loathe_. Children."  
  
Lyn wants to scream at Florina to take the others and run, to let her catch her breath and fight Sonia off until Eliwood and Hector arrive. But her breath catches in her damaged lungs, and her head aches with every involuntary twitch of her eyes.  
  
"So run along, then," Sonia taunts. "If your plainswoman ringleader was no match for me, I hardly think the rest of you will even muss my eyeliner."  
  
Florina locks eyes with Lyn. _Run_ , Lyn thinks, mouths, prays.  
  
Florina doesn't run.  
  
"You didn't deserve to even _know_ a girl like Nino," she says. And before Sonia can process it, she drops her lance, slides under Sonia's defenses, whips out a knife hidden in her belt, and stabs Sonia in the back of the knee.  
  
 _Gods, I love you,_ Lyn thinks.  
  
Sonia howls. Lyn shoves herself off the ground despite her protesting lungs and head, launches herself at Sonia's back, and tackles her to the hard ground with enough force Lyn feels the joints in her spine pop and her skull thud heavily on the stone. Blood spurts when Lyn rips Florina's knife from Sonia's leg. She screams, guttural and spine-scraping and _inhuman_.  
  
She jams the knife into Sonia's neck. More blood gushes, staining Lyn's hands, her clothes, the ground. Blood starts coming from her mouth instead of noise, gurgling and pathetic.  
  
Sonia's body goes still. Lyn feels nothing but relief.  
  


* * *

  
  
Hector tucks a blanket around her shoulders. Lyn hadn't even noticed the chill.  
  
"How'd it feel?" he asks.  
  
"She's a morph," Lyn says. "It's not the end."  
  
"Maybe so." Hector's armor clanks when he sits beside her on the wagon board. "But how'd it feel to kill her once?"  
  
Lyn looks at her hands. Blood still dries under her fingernails. She feels an echo of how it felt to drive Florina's knife into Sonia's neck. The ridges on the grip, and the ripping the sharp little blade did through muscle, sinew, nerve, blood, bone.  
  
"Good," she says. "I'm glad it's over."  
  
Hector rubs her shoulder. "Me, too."  
  


* * *

  
  
Nino is safe. That's all that matters.  
  
The second Lucius allows Lyn out of the medical tent, Nino runs to her. She catches Lyn's hands in her own and pulls them to her forehead, and the gesture means more to Lyn than Nino probably knows. Nino squeezes her hands tight, and Lyn leans down and kisses the top of her head.  
  
"You came back for me," Nino whispers. "You fought mo… well. I suppose she's _not_ my mother, is she?"  
  
"As if I would ever leave you there to fend for yourself, against that _monster_ of a woman," Lyn replies. Nino's chin trembles, and Lyn pulls her close. Nino's hands clench fistfuls of Lyn's blue tunic. It tugs strangely, but Lyn wouldn't pull her away for the world.  
  


* * *

  
  
Tongue between her teeth, Lyn concentrates. "I'll be honest with you, Nino," she says, hairbrush tugging at yet another tangle in Nino's hair, fine as cotton fibers. "I have no idea what I'm doing."  
  
"That's okay," Nino promises, a tin of half-burned attempts at Hector's favorite gingerbread cookies in her lap. "Just— _ow!"_  
  
"Sorry, sorry," Lyn grimaces. "Gods, no wonder your hair's always a mess, if it's so hard to brush."  
  
"I haven't brushed it in a while," Nino admits. "Though Fiora said maybe I should— _ow_ — cut it, if it tangles so easily. Though I'm not sure how I'd look with short hair. Oh, work from the bottom and the brush will snag less."  
  
Lyn hums. She works from the bottom, as Nino said, and although the tenseness in Nino's shoulders doesn't go away, she doesn't wince anymore. "I thought your uncle Canas lived on the Illian border," she says. "Won't short hair be a detriment when it's so cold?"  
  
"I'll just wear a hat," Nino replies. "And I'll probably have Fiora cut it before I leave, so you can see how it looks."  
  
Lyn smirks. "Just me?"  
  
Nino fiddles with the recipe card tucked into the tin. It's written in Nino's slow, careful penmanship, and the back has where she practiced making her letters before writing down what Rebecca told her to write.   
  
"Well, I want to look _good_ ," Nino mumbles. "That's all."  
  
"Mm-hmm." Lyn grins, and Nino flushes to the tips of her ears.  
  
"You're one to talk," Nino fires back. "Don't think I didn't see you _preening_ the other day, before you went to invite Florina to cocoa night."  
  
Lyn's so surprised, her brush snags on another one of Nino's tangles and yanks her head back. "That was—" she sputters. "Is it a _crime_ to look in a mirror sometimes?"  
  
Nino giggles, clearly amused. "Has she let you kiss her yet?" she teases. "Have you asked her to touch your swordswoman biceps? How about… watch you practice?"  
  
Lyn shoves her tongue in the corner of her mouth. "I don't know who in the world is teaching you these phrases," she says. "But I need to have a talk with them about teaching you to say things you don't understand."  
  
"Fiora taught me," Nino says. Of course. "And I understand exactly what they mean." Of course.  
  
Nino breathes while Lyn works the brush through more tangles. "You know, Lyn," she says. "I have to ask. Why'd you try to talk to me when I first joined up?"  
  
Lyn pauses. Her first instinct is to say that Eliwood suggested it— but that's not the whole reason, is it? There's more to it than that, even if she hadn't realized it until after the fact. Should she say it because it was the right thing to do? But that's not the whole truth, either.  
  
"I guess it was a lot of things," Lyn admits. "But I think it was mostly something like… at the time, you didn't have a family, and the only family I knew was dead, so I suppose I saw something in you that reminded me of myself. But now we've got each other, and half the damn camp's adopted you in one way or another."  
  
Nino giggles. "I think I just have that effect on people," she says.   
  
And Lyn has to chuckle admittance. "I think you do, Nino," she agrees. "But I'm glad for that."  
  
Nino smiles contentedly, and leans her head back against Lyn's knees. "Me, too."


End file.
